Mother convicted of scalding infant in shower

By Craig Kapitan :
March 7, 2013
: Updated: March 7, 2013 10:32pm

A mother was found guilty Thursday of severely burning her 10-month-old daughter from her thigh to her foot as the two showered together.

Adriana McKnight, 25, who opted to have state District Judge Angus McGinty hear her case instead of a jury, initially had faced up to life in prison for intentionally or knowingly causing serious bodily injury. She said it was an accident.

The judge said he wasn't sure if she did so knowingly, so he instead found her guilty of “recklessly” causing the injury — a lesser charge that carries a maximum 20-year sentence. He will determine the sentence in April.

“At 120 to 130 degrees it would take 20 to 30 seconds for the infant's skin to reach the burn that she sustained,” McGinty said, citing testimony from child abuse specialist Dr. James Lukefahr. “That child would have been screaming.”

McKnight testified she had just arrived at her Northeast Side home after an evening shift as a certified nurses assistant in February 2010 when she decided to take a shower with her daughter, Iyesis.

The water got uncomfortably hot during the last moments of the shower, but the baby never reacted or screamed until she started drying her off and noticed that skin was peeling from her leg, McKnight said.

The family had been experiencing problems with the shower and earlier that day her father, Roney Cobb, had tried to replace the part that modulates water temperature, he told the judge.

“If I had called a plumber in there we wouldn't be in this courtroom today,” Cobb said, pausing as he broke down into tears. “I've cried. I've prayed. I've done everything but pull my hair out.”

Cobb, who now has temporary custody of the child, said her second-degree burn scars have faded to the point where it now looks like a sunburn.